Aunt Julia and Visiting Hour Flashcards
Both about visiting a female relation and both explore themes such as
death, loss, frustration etc.
Repetition used to convey strong emotions of the poet
‘getting angry, getting angry’ in Aunt Julia and ‘I will not feel, I will not feel…’ in Visiting Hour.
Use of colour in the poet’s imagery to convey the vivid memory he has of the settings
‘brown eggs, black skirts’ in Aunt Julia and ‘white cave…black figure in Visiting Hour.
Focus on movement through effective word choice
Aunt Julia ‘paddling’ the spinning wheel with her foot ‘while her right hand drew yarn’ shows her energy as being similar to the nurses in VH who ‘walk lightly, swiftly…’
Both use imagery to convey QUIETNESS
At the end of both poems the female relations are silent. Aunt Julia is ‘silenced in the absolute blackness’ of her grave’ while in VH the patient is unable to communicate from her ‘white cave of forgetfulness.’
Pessimism of both endings: frustration of the ‘unanswered questions’
in Aunt Julia is very negative as is the description of the ‘fruitless fruits’ in VH. Both suggest atmosphere of hopelessness.
Both use adverbs effectively to convey admiration
the nurses walking ‘swiftly’ –when he’s admiring their efficiency, and Aunt Julia spinning ‘marvellously’ when he’s admiring her magical touch with the yarn.
MAIN DIFFERENCE
Main difference is the picture painted of each woman. Yes, they’re both female relatives he’s close to, but one, Aunt Julia, is depicted as being so full of life and energy, while the other, his ill wife, is practically comatose. In Aunt Julia we see she is ‘paddling’ the spinning wheel and ‘flouncing’ round the house, while in Visiting Hour, the poet’s wife is in a ‘white cave’ and struggling to open ‘eyelids too heavy to raise’
